Friday, August 30, 2013

repeat
the claim that the Second Intifada had broken out because of "the
provocative visit by [then-Opposition Leader] Ariel Sharon to the Temple
Mount."

And expands:

But we know that Arafat
had planned that war years before...Arafat continued to use
jihadist rhetoric in the speeches he gave in Arabic (while in English he
spoke of "the peace of the brave," which is open to interpretation). To
this day, the Palestinian school system denies the existence of any
link between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, referring to all
the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River as
Palestine.

Arafat had a symbiotic
relationship with the planners of the suicide attacks...It was not Arafat who
deceived us. We deceived ourselves, and we continue to do so.

...On May 8, 2000, Ehud
Barak and Arafat met privately in Ramallah. After their meeting, Arafat
told Marwan Barghouti: "Start heating things up." Barghouti obeyed. The
ground heated up, and on May 15, the Palestinians -- Fatah, not Hamas --
opened fire on Israeli troops...Barghouti was Arafat's right-hand man when it came to using
violence...in 1997, Arafat armed the members of Tanzim,
Fatah's militia, as sub-agents representing "the Palestinian street."...Mohammed Dahlan's Preventive Security Services perpetrated five terror
attacks starting in April [2000] The last of them took place on September 27
-- and all of them took place before Ariel Sharon visited the Temple
Mount.

.... In July [2000],
Ya'alon told...American researchers from the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy [that Israel was preparing the IDF for an outbreak of violence]. Later on, he learned that they had
considered his statements about an anticipated conflict orchestrated by
Arafat to be "weird."

When Sharon ascended
the Temple Mount on September 28, 2000, no unusual events were expected.
Arafat lit the flames the next day. Contrary to the Palestinian
narrative's description of a spontaneous act, the riots did not begin on
the day of Sharon's visit, but the next day...The book written by
Arafat's adviser, Mamdouh Nofal, entitled "Intifada: The Shattering of
the Peace Process," reports about the meetings Arafat held just before
Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount and the night after it took place.
During those meetings, Arafat conveyed the spirit and the message of
starting the war. Faisal Husseini used the term "Trojan horse": The Oslo
Accords were a Trojan horse that was used to "enter Palestine," he
said, and in September 2000, "We came out of the horse."

...Then there's Suha Arafat. On the
seventh anniversary of her husband's death (November 12, 2011), she
recalled the events on Palestinian television. "On the personal level, I
miss him," she said. "So does Zahwa [their daughter]. ... She knows
that Arafat told us to leave before the [Israeli] invasion of Ramallah.
He said, 'You must leave Palestine because I want to start an intifada,
and I am not willing to hide behind my wife and a little girl.' Everyone
said, 'Suha left him.' I never left him. He ordered me to go because he
had decided to start an intifada after the Oslo Accords and after the
failure of Camp David [in July 2000]."

here’s the good news: Across the West Bank, Israel’s
occupation has given rise in recent years to a nonviolent “popular
resistance” movement that should be an inspiration to people across the
globe. This unarmed resistance has persisted in the face of Israeli
state violence (aided by U.S.-supplied weapons and tear gas), lengthy
jail sentences for nonviolent protesters and widespread detention and abuse of children.

...leaders of the Palestinian popular resistance – from
intellectuals to grassroots villagers who’d been repeatedly jailed –
spoke to us about universal human rights, about a human family in which
all deserve equal rights regardless of religion or nationality. “We are
against the occupation, not against the Jews,” was the refrain among
Palestinian activists. “We have many Jews and Israelis who support us.”... Israel [is] a society that seems as paranoid
and militaristic today as our country during the McCarthyite Fifties...Seeing these “facts on the ground,” I kept asking myself
NOT “Why have many Palestinians turned to violence and terrorism?” –
but rather, “Why so few?

Rachel Musi is 53 years of age. She and her husband had lived in
Krugersdorp for 32 years. Throughout this period, he had worked tor the
Krugersdorp municipality for £ 7.10 a month. They had seven children
ranging from 19 to 2 years of age. One was doing the final year of the
Junior Certificate at the Krugersdorp "Bantu" High School and three were
in primary schools, also in Krugersdorp. She had several convictions
for brewing traditional African beer. Because of these convictions she
was arrested as an undesirable person in terms of the provisions of the
Native Urban Areas Act and brought before the Additional Native
Commissioner of Krugersdorp. After the arrest but before her trial her
husband collapsed suddenly and died. Thereafter, the Commissioner judged
her an undesirable person and ordered her deportation to Lichtenburg.
Bereaved and broken-hearted, and with the responsibility of maintaining
seven children weighing heavily on her shoulders, an aged woman was
exiled from her home and forcibly separated from her children to fend
for herself among strangers in a strange environment...

In June 1952, I and about 50 other friends were arrested in
Johannesburg while taking part in a defiance campaign and removed to
Marshall Square. As we were being jostled into the drill yard one of our
prisoners was pushed from behind by a young European constable so
violently that he fell down some steps and broke his ankle. I protested,
whereupon the young warrior kicked me on the leg in cowboy style. We
were indignant and started a demonstration. Senior police officers
entered the yard to investigate. We drew their attention to the injured
man and demanded medical attention. We were curtly told that we could
repeat the request the next day. And so it was that Samuel Makae spent a
frightful night in the cells reeling and groaning with pain,
maliciously denied medical assistance by those who had deliberately
crippled him and whose duty it is to preserve and uphold the law.

In 1941 an African lad appeared before the Native Commissioner in
Johannesburg charged with failing to give a good and satisfactory
account of himself in terms of the above Act. The previous year he had
passed the Junior Certificate with a few distinctions. He had planned to
study Matric in the Cape but, because of illness, on the advice of the
family doctor he decided to spend the year at home in Alexandra
Township. Called upon by the police to produce proof that he had
sufficient honest means of earning his livelihood, he explained that he
was still a student and was maintained by his parents. He was then
arrested and ordered to work at Leeuwkop Farm Colony for six months as
an idle and disorderly person. This order was subsequently set aside on
review by the Supreme Court but only after the young man had languished
in gaol for seven weeks, with serious repercussions to his poor health
.....

Pernicious Face of Apartheid

The breaking up of African homes and families and the forcible
separation of children from mothers, the harsh treatment meted out to
African prisoners, and the forcible detention of Africans in farm
colonies for spurious statutory offences are a few examples of the
actual workings of the hideous and pernicious doctrines of racial
inequality. To these can be added scores of thousands of foul misdeeds
committed against the people by the Government: the denial to the
non-European people of the elementary rights of free citizenship; the
expropriation of the people from their lands and homes to assuage the
insatiable appetites of European land barons and industrialists; the
flogging and calculated murder of African labourers by European farmers
in the countryside for being "cheeky to the baas"; the vicious manner in
which African workers are beaten up by the police and flung into gaols
when they down tools to win their demands; the fostering of contempt and
hatred for non-Europeans. the fanning of racial prejudice between
whites and non-whites, between the various non-white groups; the
splitting of Africans into small hostile tribal units; the instigation
of one group or tribe against another; the banning of active workers
from the people`s organizations, and their confinement into certain
areas.

All these misdemeanours are weapons resorted to by the mining and
farming cliques of this country to protect their interests and to
prevent the rise of an all-powerful organized mass struggle. To them,
the end justifies the means, and that end is the creation of a vast
market of cheap labour for the farms. That is why homes are broken up
and people are removed from cities to the countryside to ensure enough
labour for the farms. That is why non-European political opponents of
the Government are treated with such brutality. In such a set-up,
African youth with distinguished scholastic careers are not a credit to
the country, but a serious threat to the governing circles, for they may
not like to descend to the bowels of the earth and cough their lungs
out to enrich the mining magnates, nor will they elect to dig potatoes
on farms for wretched rations.

A big battle was now looming on Zimbabwean soil, not just between the
settler forces of Ian Smith but the combined forces of Smith and the
SADF [South African Defense Force]. We noticed after three to four weeks
of our presence in Zimbabwe that there was a lot of aerial
reconnaissance by the enemy. . . . We were sure that it was only a
matter of days before we would have to engage the enemy.

RAMALLAH, (PIC)– The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has called for activating the armed resistance in occupied West Bank to deter Israeli forces and settlers’ attacks.

Zulfikar Suergo, PFLP central committee member, called on resistance factions to confront settlers’ attacks and Israeli military raids. He stressed the need to provide an armed protection to the Palestinian people.

Anybody think it populist to call for the targeted killing of their seniro commanders and leaders?

The number of settler housing starts in the West Bank skyrocketed by
141.5 percent in the first half of 2013...The jump from last year is so great that the work that
began on 1,461 homes during the first six months of 2013 has surpassed
the 1,089 starts registered by CBS for all of 2012. However,
housing starts throughout the country including the West Bank dropped by
5.9% in the first half of 2013, when compared with the same period in
2012, according to CBS.

...According to CBS, in 2008, during the
Annapolis peace conference, work began on 2,332 West Bank homes, and in
2009, prior to the moratorium, when the Annapolis process and peace
talks in general were halted, construction began on 1,963 more units.

That number declined by 62% to 738 in 2010, the year of the moratorium, which ended that September, according to CBS figures.

CBS
data reveal that although the number rose by 50%, to 1,108 homes in
2011, it was still far below the 2009 and 2008 figures. In addition,
ground broken for housing units in 2012 was consistent with 1,089
settler starts that year...

The Congressman was visiting Israel to learn about issues of security and emergency services as he is a former police chief and sits on the Ways and Means Committee. He is a member of the Law Enforcement Caucus.

It turned out it was his birthday, and so, he was presented with a cake:

(We couldn't eat it since the policy of kosher hotels is that no food can be brought in and eaten at a hotel event. What is eaten in your hotel room, well, that's another matter).

Around 60 Israeli conscripts stormed the holy Aqsa mosque in occupied Jerusalem on Tuesday in military uniform. The conscripts divided themselves into two groups and toured the Mosque’s various plazas each group with a tour guide who gave an explanation about the alleged temple.

Hundreds of tourists and Jewish settlers also toured the holy site under heavy Israeli police escort that restrained the movement of Muslim worshipers and scholars.

For its part, the Aqsa Foundation said that the Israeli occupation authorities were trying to establish daily presence inside the Aqsa in line with a “feverish scheme” to divide the holy site.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

For much of the film we simply see Nashif in various telling scenarios:
caressing the pregnant stomach of his wife; holding her as they fight
and she weeps; walking through the streets of Ramallah and gazing at the skyscrapers and settlements as they compete to scramble into the blue sky;

From September 1966 until August 1967 I participated in the program of the Jewish Agency's Youth and Hechalutz for the training of senior Madrichim for the various youth movements, first established in 1946 - the Machon L'Madrichei Chutz LaAretz (see here, too).

I attended lectures of Dr. Israel Eldad at the old Ezry Gallery on the corner of Hess and King David Street and on Saturday nights, after Shabbat, would attend a Melave Malka at King David's Tomb and later, we would ascend the minaret.From the minaret' top, we could view into Jerusalem's Old City and spot the trees on the Temple Mount.And we'd shout out into the darkness across the barbed wire dividing the city: "we're returning. we're coming back!"And we did.^

If hostilities against Syria expand beyond air strikes, will Turkey take advantage of the situation and increase its land grab?Previously:-

In 1938, the Republic of Hatay became independent from the French mandate of Syria as the Republic of Hatay and following a referendum, 8 months later in 1939, it decided to join Turkey. This self-annexation was never recognized by Syria, which continues to show the Hatay Province of Turkey as part of Syria's territory on maps.

At present, Syrians hold the view that this land is historically Syrian and was illegally ceded in the late 1930s to Turkey by France – the mandatory occupying power of Syria (between 1920 and 1946). The Turks remember Syria as a former Ottoman vilayet. In 1938, the Turkish Army went into the former Syrian Mediterranean province with French approval and expelled most of its Alawite Arab and Armenian inhabitants. Before this, Alawi Arabs and Armenians were the majority of the provincial population. For the referendum, Turkey crossed tens of thousands of Turks into Alexandretta to vote.In 1938, the province declared its independence from France and the following 29 June, the parliament of the newly declared Hatay Republic voted to join Turkey. This referendum has been labeled both "phoney" and "rigged", and that it was a way for the French to let Turks take over the area, hoping that they would turn on Hitler. The Syrian government recognized this decision in 2004 and gave up on territorial claims. Syrians still consider this land as integral Syrian territory. Syrians call this land Liwaaa aliskenderuna rather than the Turkish name of Hatay.

...documents demonstrate that there is a “missing dimension” in the
established historiography of the Middle East in those years. They cover
the period between October 1945 and December 1946 and address
Turkish-Syrian relations against the backdrop of the inter-Arab and
Anglo-Soviet rivalry over the future of Syria in the early years of the
Cold War. Then, as today, the weakness and lack of stability of the
Syrian state prompted Turkey to intervene in Syria in an attempt to
replace the anti-Turkish republican regime headed by President Shukri
al-Quwatli (Doc. 8) with a friendly Hashemite monarchy under King
Abdallah, which was to include Syria and Lebanon in addition to
Transjordan and was to be linked with the Hashemite kingdom in Iraq.
(Docs. 12, 13)

The borders between Turkey and Syria are not, as far as we know, an
issue today, but after World War II the two countries were engaged in a
territorial dispute. Their quarrel over the province of Alexandretta
became a source of tension in Turkish-Syrian relations, and also played a
part in the Anglo-Soviet secret war in the Middle East. The province of
Alexandretta (Hatay), with its strategic port city of the same name,
had been part of Syria under the French mandate in 1920-1936. Turkey
claimed the province, arguing that its Turkish inhabitants comprised the
majority. On the eve of World War II, France, seeking Turkey’s
cooperation against Nazi Germany, tacitly agreed to relinquish the
province, despite strong protests from the Syrian leaders. In June 1939,
Turkey took over the province, causing thousands of Arab and Armenian
refugees to flee to Syria. After the war, the Syrian nationalist leaders
sought to exploit Britain’s designs to incorporate their country in a
regional defense alliance with Turkey and Iraq against the Soviet Union,
to demand the return of the province.

...Britain was involved not only in the efforts to solve the problem of
Alexandretta, but took part behind the scenes in the negotiations on the
secret agreement of December 1946 between the Turkish, Iraqi and
Jordanian leaders to form a Hashemite Greater Syrian monarchy. (Docs.
11,) This was part of a more elaborate plan devised by British
intelligence agents with the tacit agreement of Foreign Secretary Ernest
Bevin. Its first step was implemented in November and December 1946 and
entailed the removal of the anti-Hashemite and anti-Turkish Syrian
prime minister, Sa’adallah al-Jabiri, and his replacement with Jamil
Mardam, who was secretly collaborating with the British agents and Nuri
al-Said. Its more ambitious goal was to solve the conflict between the
Hashemite and Saudi royal families by forming two large monarchies – one
under the Hashemites in the Fertile Crescent in the north, and a Saudi
monarchy that would extend over most of the Arabian Peninsula in the
south, including Yemen. Bevin informally proposed such a plan to Prince
Faisal, Ibn Saud’s son, in January 1947, but the Saudi king turned it
down...

... On the one hand there is Arab aversion to the
“return of the Ottoman Empire” to the Arab world, and on the other,
readiness in certain instances to seek Turkish intervention. In this
regard, the present Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in a
better position to intervene in the Arab world than was President
Inonu, who represented the nationalist secularist Kemalist Turkish
Republic.

At least 51 people were killed and dozens wounded in a series of bombings and attacks across Baghdad on Wednesday, police and medical sources said, extending the worst wave of violence in Iraq in at least five years. In one of the worst incidents a car bomb killed seven people and wounded 23 in Jisr Diyala in southeastern Baghdad, police and medics said.

More:

ALGERIA, Aug 28 (KUNA) -- Three Algerian army members were killed, while four
were injured after a bomb exploded in Beni Milleuk Mountains in Tipaza Province,
western Algiers on Wednesday. Security sources said that the army was combing
the mountains connecting Ain Defla Province with Tipaza, after receiving reports
of terrorist activities in the area. The sources noted that a terrorist group
had planted a mine in the road where Algerian army vehicles where roaming.

More:

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) condemns the continuing targeting of the media and press in Libya by the armed groups and using the violence in oder to terrorize and to muzzle their voices. This comes after unidentified assailants stormed the headquarter of Libya Aljadidah newspaper in Tripoli.On Friday night, a number of unidentified assailants stormed the newspaper's headquarter in Tripoli and seized the equipment and contents therein...On Friday (9 August), the journalist Ezz El-Din Koussad was killed by armed men, and also the dissent Abdel Sallam El-Mesmary was shot dead outside his house on July 26.

More:

Tunisia’s Islamist premier Ali Larayedh said Tuesday that Ansar al-Sharia was behind the assassinations of secular opposition leaders Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi and said the group will now be classified as a terrorist organisation.

...Ansar al-Sharia is the most radical Islamist group to emerge in Tunisia since secular autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was toppled in 2011. Its attacks have posed a challenge to the authority of the moderate Islamist-led government...

Anybody for "peace negotiations"?

And don't forget this:

NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Palestinian security forces [???] killed a man in a Nablus-area refugee camp [???] late Tuesday, officials and witnesses said. Amjad Odeh, 37, died in what Palestinian officials described as an exchange of fire between the security forces and a wanted man in Askar refugee camp...Witnesses told Ma’an that dozens of Palestinians attacked security forces with rocks after the incident.

Wait, doesn' that seem like what happened in Qalandiya the other day?So, are they going to stop the conciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas?

From this article we learn that the leader of the Islamic Movement doesn't want Jews and the Temple Mount and is "reserving" next Wednesday and in addition blames Israel for Dennis Rohan's 1969 torching of Al-Aqsa (which Israel put out since their firefighting capabilities were non-existent):

Said Sheikh Raed Salah in his sermon: "...the criminal who burn the Al-Aqsa Mosque was named Michael Dennis Rohan, but from the gathered evidence and clues in our hands it is affirmed that the Israeli occupation planned that crime and sponsored its implementation...criminal Rohan used materials to burn Al-Aqsa Mosque in extremely sensitive way not available...the torching was in more than one place...fire trucks were prevented from extinguishing the fire, forcing people, men and women to carry water on their shoulders and from their homes with water long distances to put out the flames that crime. "..."It is clear that the Israeli occupation seeks today...to force the division of Al-Aqsa Mosque division...in our hands [we know that]...Israel has prepared a blueprint engineered to build a synagogue inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, has published the map to the public......"It is here warned, O worshipers...that the Israeli occupation is planning to incursions large very serious in the coming days of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, there is talk of promoting them ready seriously to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque on 4.9 after a few days , there is talk of promoting them to break into the Al-Aqsa Mosque between the date of 15.9 to 19.19...

The key to the Land of Israel has ancient synagogues. Come and participate in a tour which is both instructive, and makes you part of the generations of the People of Israel

· Between 1:00 and 13:00

· A bus will be provided Jerusalem at 9:00; cost 50 sh per person

· Under IDF escort.

Afternoon: Tour of the Biblical Guilgal, Beit Hogla and the Jordan Crossing

Did you know where the People of Israel were born? Did you know where the mass-brit mila after entering the Land was performed? Did you know where the Key to the Land of Israel is?

· Between 16:00 and 19:00

· Activities for the children

· By private car - cost per person 20sh.

For both events, you must register in advance: Phone Erna 052-8699300 or Yoni 052-3527313

4th Day of Hol HaMoed

Monday 19 Tishrei - 23/09

Morning: Tour of the Hasmonean Palaces and the Priestly burial caves

In the city of Priests (Cohens) - Jericho - in the time of the Second Temple, the kings themselves were Priests. Come and see for yourselves how the ritual baths (Mikve) are built according to Jewish Law; see the gigantic swimming pools in the grandiose Hasmonean palaces; come and learn about ancient burial tradition...

Between 10:00 and 13:00

· Depart from Mitzpe Yericho in private cars - cost 20 sh per person

Guided tour with tour guide

Afternoon: Tour of the Biblical Guilgal

From 16:00 to 19:00

· Fulfilling activities for young and old· Cost: 20 sh per person, including children over 2 years old.

For both events, you must register in advance:

Phone Erna 052-8699300 or Yoni 052-3527313

Hoshana Raba Eve

Tuesday Eve of 21 Tishrei - 24/09

Hoshana Raba Eve all-night study in Beit Hogla opposite Mt Nevo,

under the eyes of Moses…

· All-night study in Beit Hogla with Rav Shimon Ben Tzion,

Rav Dr Hagi ben Artzi and Rav Avraham Blass,

the founder of the Jerusalem Talmud Institute.

Hoshana Raba

Wednesday 21 Tishrei - 25/09

Morning Hoshana Raba prayer in Jericho

We continue our presence in Jericho, by praying in its most important synagogue...

· With the help of G-d, we will pray at dawn in the Shalom al Israel synagogue in Jericho – at 6:00 AM.

I wonder: is anyone of authority asking themselves WTF?!Why would Iran do that?Here:

A senior Iranian lawmaker said Israel would be the first casualty of any U.S.-led strike on Syria, according to regional media reports. Hossein Sheikholeslam, the director general of the Iranian parliament’s International Affairs bureau, claimed the United States would not dare attack Syria but said that if it does, “the Zionist regime will be the first victim.”“No military attack will be waged against Syria,” Sheikholeslam was quoted as saying on Monday by Iran’s state run Fars News Agency. “Yet, if such an incident takes place, which is impossible, the Zionist regime will be the first victim of a military attack on Syria,” Sheikholeslam said in an apparent response to the Obama administration’s increasingly stern rhetoric against Syria.

Is that a rational attitude?A logical conclusion?Do not people-of-power in the West not realize these people are irrational in their hatred?^

...Incidents like the one that occurred today in Qalandia that resulted in three Palestinian deaths and last week’s confrontation in Jenin do illustrate the problem with the peace process, but it is not the one that the liberal mainstream media and the international press think it is. The idea that Israel is staging these attacks to undermine the talks is false. The fact that the IDF is forced to enter built-up areas in order to track down terrorist suspects shows just how unreliable the Palestinian Authority is as a peace partner. Moreover, the willingness of mobs in these towns to rally to defend suspects and attack the IDF with gunfire and rocks is testimony to how deeply rooted support for terror operations is in a Palestinian population that we are told is ready for an end to the conflict.

Jonathan Tobin_____________P.S.(Communicated by the MFA Spokesperson) 27 August 2013

...we were disappointed (but not surprised) at UNRWA's press statement from yesterday. While omitting to mention any context or reason for the Israeli operation, it was quick to cite "credible reports" in determining that its employee had been shot "…on his way to work, and was not involved in any violent activity."

Quite aside from the fact that UNRWA did not even bother to approach any official Israeli sources for comment, its statement was rushed to the press while the violent riots were still raging on in Qalandiya. Hence, it begs the question of how it was possible for the Agency to collect forensic evidence, cross reference personal eye-witness reports and reach peremptory conclusions – all of that in the space of just a few hours.

It is regrettable that UNRWA has consistently failed to display similar zeal and enthusiasm when asked to investigate its own cases of alleged wrongdoing. Earlier this month, for example, the Agency was forced to admit that it had negligently allowed a third party to use some of its installations in order to organize 'summer camps' where anti-Semitism and incitement to violence were preached to Palestinian youth. Needless to say, UNRWA's half-hearted admission was released only after "a lengthy and detailed investigation", as opposed to the rushed superficial procedure it adopted yesterday.

We therefore call upon UNRWA to return to its original humanitarian agenda of assisting Palestinian refugees, while refraining from any one-sided political advocacy activities. Only thus can it hope to be taken seriously – both by Israel and the international donor community.

The U.S. will also guarantee $110 million in loans to small- and medium-sized businesses located on the West Bank.

The mortgage and business-loan activities will be conducted by the
federal Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). “OPIC is the
U.S. Government’s development finance institution,” says OPIC’s website.
“OPIC provides financial products, such as loans and guaranties;
political risk insurance; and support for investment funds, all of which
help American businesses expand into emerging markets.”

She is Marie Harf, State Department Deputy Spokesperson at the Daily Press Briefing in Washington, DC on August 26, 2013.Read it all here.

Okay, a hint:

...QUESTION: -- you’re beating around the bush, but please don’t try and say that you’re making it clear when you’re making it unclear. You’re --

MS. HARF: I don’t understand what’s not clear about saying I’m not going to confirm every meeting. You can ask --

QUESTION: But you just said that no meetings have been canceled --

MS. HARF: Right.

QUESTION: -- but you can say that it took place.

MS. HARF: Yes.

QUESTION: So that means – what does that mean?

MS. HARF: It means that I’m not going to confirm when meetings took place. There were rumors --

QUESTION: Whatever.

...QUESTION: It means nothing.

MS. HARF: Look, when some – when there are press reports out there that a meeting’s been canceled, I’m going to say, generally speaking, no meetings have been canceled. I’m not going to stand here --

QUESTION: So if it wasn’t canceled, then it took place?

MS. HARF: I’m not going to stand here and tell you a meeting took place and when and where and who was involved. And that’s going to be the case for the rest of this nine months, people, so get ready for it, and you can keep asking the questions and you’re going to keep getting the same response.

QUESTION: So we should get accustomed to more confusing non-denials and denials?

MS. HARF: You should get accustomed to us not announcing when meetings are taking place necessarily in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Yes.

QUESTION: But if you’re going to clear up misconceptions, then just clear it up. Don’t --

MS. HARF: Okay.

QUESTION: -- say you’re going to clear it up and then not clear it up.

MS. HARF: I’ll take your advice onboard going forward.

QUESTION: In retrospect, was it a mistake to say that there would be a second meeting in Jericho when you announced the first one?

MS. HARF: No, not at all.

QUESTION: Oh? So – but then you can’t say if it actually happened or not? I might be able to be – I would be more sympathetic to your position or your case here if you hadn’t ever announced that the meeting in Jericho was going to happen, but you did. Okay?

MS. HARF: Right. And I don’t have anything --

QUESTION: So from going --

MS. HARF: -- to announce on it.

QUESTION: From now, going forward, if you don’t want to be caught in this verbal trapeze act that you’re involved in, don’t announce that there’s going to be a meeting in the first place and then say you can’t say that it – whether it happened or not.

MS. HARF: Again, we will announce – at times announce meetings when we feel it’s important to do so. And when we don’t, we will not announce every meeting...

Monday, August 26, 2013

When Cyrus, "the king of the universe," issued his famous proclamation inscribed on the Cyrus Cylinder after capturing Babylon in 539 B.C.E., he described a policy that allowed for the return of foreign statues to their native shrines together with a policy allowing deported peoples to return to their own native homelands. Here, Cyrus implicitly confirmed the biblical description of deportees as those who were settled in their own communities. His decree acknowledged the Babylonian practice of identifying foreign groups according to their ethnic identities. "Freedom" for Cyrus meant that foreign population groups, who dwelt on Babylonian lands, were no longer subject to the restrictions of dependent status, and were free, if they wished, to return to their homelands. Repatriation for the Judeans meant that exiles could return to Jerusalem to begin the rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of their land.

Toward the end of the first century A.D. Jerusalem lay in ruins, the second temple built by Herod the Great (74/73–4 B.C.) destroyed and ransacked by the Roman army. Meanwhile, in Babylon, scribes continued to copy ancient texts, inscribing some of them on cuneiform tablets made of clay. After the last cuneiform scribe passed to his fate, no one remained who could read or write documents in Babylonian, Assyrian, or Sumerian. In 1893, pioneer archaeologists and explorers digging in Iraq began to uncover vast archives of cuneiform tablets that had been buried for two thousand years. Today, philologists, archaeologists, and historians are able to combine narratives previously known only from the Bible with information gleaned from thousands of historic, literary, religious, and scientific texts, illuminating the world of Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, and Cyrus. The Cyrus Cylinder, now on view at the Met, helps us understand the peoples and policies of the ancient Near East.

No, not here in Yesha, Yehudah v'Shomron, i.e., Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the reconstituted homeland that international law guaranteed the Jewish people, assuring "close settlement" in these areas.

While normative international law terms Israel's administrative control as "belligerent occupation" (I, at this moment, am non-belligerently occupying a chair as I type), that "occupation" is not illegal no matter how many times Israel's opponents write that.On the other hand, there is an occupation in Azerbaijan’s Fuzuli and Jabrayil regions by Armenia and its army.

Did you know that the region of Fuzuli was occupied by the Armenian military units on August 23, 1993 and 50 villages in west Fuzuli region is still under occupation?

13 settlements and 20 villages of the region were liberated from the Armenian occupation. 12 settlements were newly built and internally displaced persons [refugees in Palestinian talk] settled there. 51 thousand displaced persons settled in 12 newly-built IDP settlements. Thousands of residents of Fuzuli region fought for the liberation of their homeland. 1100 people became martyrs in the battles against the Armenian aggressors and 1450 became invalids.

And did you know that today is also the day of occupation of Azerbaijan’s Jabrayil region by Armenians?

18 years have passed since its occupation.180 people were killed in the battles against the Armenian aggressors, 6 – during the ceasefire. 14 police officers, 60 civilians were killed, 91 were taken hostage or became missing and 177 people became invalids. Six people became National Heroes of Azerbaijan.

Did you know that

Armenians destroyed about 120 historic and architectural monuments, valuable forests, rich mineral and natural resources and exceptional flora and fauna in the region of Jabrayil? And they also committed arsons in more than 16 000 ha of territory in the region.

I guess there are some "occupations" that no one cares about because they don't know about or don't want to know about or simply don't care about.After all, Jewish occupiers is such a better narrative.(thanks to EP)^

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Dozens of Jewish settlers stormed on Sunday morning al-Aqsa mosque
from the Maghareba gate, under the protection of the Israeli police...nearly 40 rabbis and Jewish religious leaders stormed Al-Aqsa
Mosque in two groups and toured its courtyards.

Media Coordinator of the Foundation, Mahmoud Abu Atta...pointed out that the Jewish settlers’ storming of Al-Aqsa
Mosque became almost daily routine, and warned that they might intensify
their raids during Jewish holidays early next month.

Sheikh Raed Salah...leader of the northern branch
of the Islamic Movement in Israel...called this weekend for Israeli Arabs to block Jewish access to the Temple Mount with their bodies. Salah warned his listeners that Israel is planning to “break in” to the Temple Mount, on which the Al Aqsa mosque now stands...Salah called on Muslims from across Israel – from the Negev and Galilee,
Akko and Haifa – to come prevent the “dangerous mass invasion into Al
Aqsa” with their bodies.

It is not dangerous because Salah is a danger that cannot be contained or curtailed or even jailed.

It is dangerous because the police are relatively subservient to Islamist threats and provocations. If they want to, they can deal with violence or the 'promise' of such. The operative word, though, is "if".^

The Small Western Wall is the name given to an exposed section of the
Western Wall located about 170 meters (558 feet) north of the Western
Wall Plaza. It can be reached by going through a narrow alleyway
adjacent to the Iron Gate in the Muslim Quarter...

• Section which is completely exposed: 8.2 meters (27 feet)... • Total
length of the Small Western Wall from the entrance gate in the south to
the end of arch in the north: 17.70 meters (58 feet)...• Width of the paved plaza before the Small Western Wall: 4.20 meters (13.8 feet).The
elders of Jerusalem used to come to the Small Western Wall to recite
Tikkun Hazot (A Kabbalistic Midnight prayer for redemption).

The relevance of this?

Well, not that elements in the Palestinian Authority seem to deny Jewish rights to the Wall. No, it is that we now learn that the Women of the Wall do not recognize the Southern Section as part of the Western Wall and demand to have their monthly prayer quorums at the Western Wall Plaza solely.Reported:

The chairperson of Women of the Wall, Anat Hoffman, is admantly opposed to an initiative by Religions Minister Naftali Bennett, to open a separate area next
to the Kotel for non-Orthodox prayer, and to limit her group's prayers
to that area. She was quick to denounce the offer almost as soon as
Bennett announced it...The “new” prayer area is outside the Kotel plaza but still adjacent to
the wall. It has been approved as a prayer area alone, and cannot be
used for wedding or circumcision ceremonies...Speaking on IDF Radio, Hoffman said: “We must not let thugs decide our policy.
I am willing to talk with Minister Bennett right this minute and give
him some excellent suggestions that will not hurt anyone's feelings.” "I respect other people's emotions very much, but I will not be
relegated to an alternative offer that is located lower, and there is
importance to this,” she said.

I know that women are very good at fashion and culinary arts. But to distibguish between 'that' wall and 'that' wall? It's one wall. The area they have been provided is amazing as it is close to at least one Second Temple mikveh, remnants of stores where sacrificial animals were purchased and where there is an inscription on one of the stones.

It is holy. It is sacred. They can pray there and commune with God. After all, they are not displaying themselves to people, or are they? Is that their purpose, to be seen by others?

Oh, and isn't the Wall in "Occupied Palestinian Territory" according to meretz, Anat's party?

___________

P.S.

I have been informed that the Jerusalem Chapter of Emunah women davened at the Small Wall ("HaKotel Hakatan") for years on Rosh Chodesh because they wanted to encourage people to realize the holiness of the entire Wall. In addition to all their education and welfare projects and with not obsseive desire for publicity, just davening.

P.P.S. Bennett has just published a photo of the area intended for the WOWers:

I was informed that a clip I had posted some two and a half years ago, showing that the claim of the existence of "apartheid roads" is patently false in that you saw Israeli-licensed cars and Palestinian Authority-licensed vehicles traveling on the same road was gone (how, I do not know).

Okay, it's too shaky and a bit amateurish, but I was in the backseat and this is what one gets.Jews and non-Jews on the same road, Highway 60, from Shiloh towards Jerusalem.If you watch closely, or stop the clip to check, you'll notice that the three cars in front of us have PA plates and half the cars passing us going north are also with PA plates.^

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.